The Way of the Earth

The personal and ruminative fourth collection from Shenoda (Tahrir Suite) explores human bonds to the earth and nature. Elegiac poems about ecology and landscape offer finely crafted poems about vistas literal and metaphoric at risk. The book’s epigraph from Corinthians, “We are hard pressed on every side, but/ not crushed,” aptly captures the collection’s mix of duress and hope. The opening poem of the first section, “Time,” begins: “Time never goes backwards,/ but the imagination must.// In the small grooves of a pinewood floor/ the recesses of footsteps/ worn by the pressures of a human life,” elegantly evoking the meeting of the human and natural world. This theme is picked up in “Sleep,” in which the speaker describes, “Dry earth, abundant/ hills that stretched the length of an imagination.” Later in the poem, Shenoda writes, “I learned from my father,/ long before I ever understood/ what it meant to be a person on this earth// how one lives for moments that make our compass clear,/ give us enough view to see the next moment,/ and cultivate its gifts.” This gorgeous book is full of captivating description and introspective wisdom. (Oct.)